With England out of the World Cup, football fans are now shifting their allegiance to a different country across the channel.

Belgium has emerged as everyone’s second team in the UK and it’s not surprising when you consider that 11 out of their 23 man squad play in the English Premier League. They are the World Cup team with the second most number of Premiership players only second to England.

As a Spurs fan, I got immense satisfaction watching Jan Vertonghen score the winning goal as Belgium beat South Korea 1-0 in the last game of the group stages. And if you’re a keen Man City fan, you will want to see captain Vincent Kompany emulate the success that he had during the regular season.

Manchester United fans were thrilled to see Adnan Januzaj play in his international debut against South Korea last week – the same feeling you got seeing your son play for his local team when he was seven years old.

Belgium now face the USA on Tuesday night in the last 16 of the competition. Some punters will fancy a jubilant USA team that finished above Portugal and Ghana in a group of death.

Former Spurs and Fulham man Clint Dempsey shows no lack of class despite downgrading to the MLS last year scoring two goals in the first two games of the group stages. Playing as a ‘false nine’ striker, Dempsey poses the most threat to Belgium’s progression with Sunderland’s Jozy Altidore facing a late fitness test after damaging his hamstring against Ghana.

Belgium go into this match after winning their first three games of the World Cup in unconvincing fashion. Relying on the impact of late substitutes and late goals to come out on top, football fans have been disappointed that Belgium haven’t been demolishing their opponents. In particular, Everton’s Romelu Lukaku has failed to find the net which is surprising for someone with his record at club level.

Needless to say, Belgium’s Manager Marc Wilmot has created a team that is hard to beat. In fact, the Belgium team haven’t lost a competitive game since he took charge 2 years ago. So for a team that remains unbeaten in two years, something tells me that Belgium won’t go down so easily.